Software Quality

Chapter 7SQA Plan and Project Plan

7.1 Introduction

Planning ahead is always the key to success, this also applies to preparing SQA plans and project plans. The chapter is dedicated to SQA plans and project plans – their preparation process and contents.

The SQA plan (SQAP) deals with the activities and tasks the SQA function is required to carry out over the next year, and enables estimating resources required to perform the SQAP. The planners of the resource estimates refer to the professional knowledge and experience requirements of the various activities and tasks, and classify the staff requirement accordingly. In this way, the SQA function may be appropriately staffed to carry out the SQAP in the coming year.

The project plan deals with the activities and tasks to be performed by the project team throughout the project's life cycle, namely, during the development and operation stages. Probably, two of the most important elements of the project plan are the activities schedule and the resource estimates for each activity.

The two plans are tightly connected, and need to be coordinated. A great part of the SQAP activities has to be coordinated with the relevant project plan activities. In other words, each project plan needs to be coordinated with the relevant part/s of the SQAP. Moreover, the coordination continues in the execution stage, when both plans are updated according to project progress and change requests are performed.

Sections 7.2 and 7.3 present the process ...